All to often, in business (of all types), the whole concept of designing something to be useful/usable is ignored, overlooked, and generally considered a waste of time. When presented with the idea of 1 hours to throw a crappy form together, or 1 day to lay it out properly (size text fields accordingly, put things in a logical order, set up server sessions to save data between pages, add decent validation, etc), most people at the management level will choose quick and cheap any day of the week. They don't care one bit how things look or work, as long as it doesn't affect them.
Start updating TOS to state that anyone who is in public office is banned from visiting or viewing a site. Then start sending the bastards to jail for violating... ok well, none of them would actually go to jail, but it may cause enough stir to get this whole stupid idea tossed out.
I don't think it will take off anytime in the near future. The way that we interact with computers is so ingrained in us that the 3D paradigm is just to foreign for the average user. Sure, movies make it look cool and easy, but out side of gaming and CAD, there just isn't an accepting market. Meanwhile, if you do want to get into 3D development (dons flameproof suit and hunkers down for the inevitable explosion), Flash is still a viable option. Using the Air platform you can target Windows and Mac desktop, Android and IOS (as apps), and with little to no code change, also target any browser that still has the Flash Player installed. At the moment, that's the best option for developing 3D and hitting the highest number of platforms. However, expect much hate and discontent from nerds and fanbois when you mention developing anything in Flash.
about different levels of hardware... I can certainly see where they're coming from, but it's certainly not the route I would take. But hey, what do I know?
why? because we can. not because its a good idea, or because there's some potential great end to it, but simply because we can. there is a certain thrill in the accomplishment that transcends any need for a good reason why. and sometimes, just sometimes, "because we can" is the best damn reason ever. other times its utterly f*cking stupid, YMMV.
i can say from experience that neither one is even remotely qualified to manage nuclear weapons. hell, lets be honest, most people people at the management level, civilian and military alike, shouldnt even be managing their own breakfast choices, let alone nuclear weapons, or worse- other people (yes, i consider people much more dangerous than nuclear weapons, but thats just my opinion).
i swear i read an article in discover magazine (i know, a magazine, it was that long ago) about some researcher that had hooked up electrodes to a patient and taught them how to control a mouse cursor, and later and electric wheelchair with their mind. it became and autonomic function, just like moving your arm (i hate the term "thought controlled", you dont really "think" about moving, its subconscious function) and it was done using a basic EEG(?). am i imagining this, or does anyone else remember this as well? its quite possible that this is a completely incorrect memory thought, i was a kid at the time and i read a lot of sci-fi, so its very possible my memories of real-sci have mixed with my memories of sci-fi
Not a physicist here, so maybe someone who is (or knows more than me could answer) - could we find a way to absorb the energy from these particles, and maybe pump that energy into the warp drive? one of those "the faster you go, the more energy you collect" kind of things?
or if youre in a "work at will" state where theyll fire you for being on jury duty, but officially say it was for some other bullshit reason, and they youre ass-out-of-luck. hurray for "work at will"!
doubtful, considering that most businesses wont move to 8 for at least a couple years, and theres a very good chance theyll skip if altogether and thats the only place where i would NEED to use windows 8. in the consumer world, within a few minutes of sitting down at a win8 computer, ill be able to figure out where everything i really need is at (and most likely how to switch to the non-metro mode, but considering that i avoid using other peoples computers where i can it probably wont ever be an issue. and really, who's gonna point and laugh at me cause i dont know how to use win8? 12 year old MS fanbois?
One of the big problems in design these days (in all manners of design, including UI's in cars) is that the average consumer has no idea that things like this are a bad idea. They don't think about how tactile feedback, or how much they'll have to take their eyes off the road, or auditory input with visual output, or any manner of things that people like us (/.'s) think of. They think that touch is high tech, and therefore better (regardless of the implementation), they put form over function, they want the newest and flashiest, even if it isn't the best. Good design takes a back seat to "cool" design more often than not, because the mass public only wants what's new, shiny and cool. Every now and then, good design and cool design intersect and everybody wins, but it's rare.
WYSIWYG editors are great for beginners. but, as most everyone has pointed out, they invariably generate messy code. once you've gotten past the beginner stage, you need to get your hands in the code and learn to do things properly. i realize that designers are often quick to say that you should use an editor, but lets look at it this way- would you take carpentry advice from a plumber? probably not. so why would you take advice on coding a website from a designer? and as for using the tools to generate the code, then going back and cleaning up, personally i find that to be more work than just doing it right the first time. hand coding isnt hard, and the more you do it, the faster you get at it.
Maybe it'll help a few of the more ignorant Christians realize that the King James version is not the one allegedly handed down by god.
dont hold your breath. more likely, therell be a whole pile of "KJV only" groups that will denounce this, kick people who own one out of the church, and rant from the pulpit about this being another attempt by the devil to infiltrate our churches
well, theres the whole "walled garden" thing, and there's apple's tendency to simply stop supporting legacy hardware (which i agree with wholeheartedly, but can be considered an abusive practice), and theres the "apple tax" on desktops and laptops (sure, we can debate the merits of apple's "quality", or their warranties, but at the end of the day, i can buy an equally spec'd machine with windows on it for roughly half of what i would pay for a mac, and do as much, if not more on it than i could on a mac. and if i build it myself, i can probably do it even cheaper.). my comment wasnt a comparison of ms vs apple, but simply a statement of how we, as americans, have a tendency to move from one abusive product provider to another, and we laud how great the new abuser is until we get tired of the way they beat us, and we move again to a different form of abuse.
and eventually even fat stupid Americans catch on and figure out that you're abusing them
So what will these "fat stupid Americans" switch to? Linux? Or will Apple start selling machines at a reasonable price and achieve larger market share?
most likely we'll say "we're tired of being flogged by microsoft, lets go to apple and get caned instead!". we americans have a high capacity for allowing corporations to abuse us (maybe not those of us who read/. but the average american just moves from abuser to abuser)
im not overly popular with typical HR people, cause i ask lots of questions during the initial interview, such as: how do you handle performance reviews? how is management reviewed (top down, 360, etc)? it weeds out bad places to work real quick. plus, its really fun to see the look on an interviewers face when theyre put on the spot.
but rarely ever to browse through the "folder structure" in there. i type the name of what i want and hit enter. 9 times out of 10 its faster than clicking through the folders. for programs i use regularly i have object dock (an identical dock on each screen) as a quicklaunch. i never liked the way things looked pinned to the taskbar and the windows quicklaunch bar just seemed ugly to me. any suggestions on something that i can replace the start menu search with so that when im forced (kicking and screaming, clutching 7 for dear life) into using 8 ill be able to keep my workflow the same? or maybe ill just use a shell replacement..... any suggestions there?
theres good money to be made in injuring, killing, tracking, analyzing, and advertising to humans. not very many companies on this planet would deliberately shut themselves off from that revenue stream. there would be a few that would market the "3 laws safe!" phone, but its only a matter of time before they would succumb to the delicious lure of higher revenue and market share. if anything, they would lie to us about how our phones are "law-abiding" and just do it behind our backs.
they arent my complaints- i develop using AIR on a regular basis. i asked the question "what exactly is wrong with AIR" and those were the stock answers i expected to get from other people here on slashdot. let me address a few points though
just cause something is made by adobe doesnt mean its automatically bad. flash has security holes. that doesnt mean everything else is a terrible product.
saying that AIR isn't available on important platforms is quite incorrect. AIR compiles to Windows, OSX, Linux, IOS, and Android. Currently, it doesn't compile to Blackberry (no big loss) and Windows Phones (i consider that not a big loss). Did i miss anything?
power consumption - yep, it consumes more power than native apps. youre absolutely right. thats the nature of scripted languages with runtime environments. same problem with java, same problem with javascript (and lets not get started on all the different js engines in the browsers), same problem with php, same problem with asp, same problem with....well, every interpreted language- they all consume more resources than native.
however, as long as a developer writes good code, handles memory and event listeners properly, doesn't take shortcuts, etc, the power use difference can be negligible.
as for my last "answer", your rewrite is the correct way of looking at things. however on slashdot, there is a very vocal group that doesn't see it that way. they see only what they know, and insist that if it isn't what they know, it's no good. personally, ive written in C++, C#, Objectionable C, and Java, but I find that i can get most things done considerably quicker in AS3 and AIR. obviously its not always the right tool for the job, and i have no problems jumping to a different language if the project dictates, but when AIR is an option, it's usually the one I go to
Slashdot Mirror
It's like the CEO handed iPhones to the design team and barked: "Here, copy this!"
there's a pretty good chance that's exactly what happened
All to often, in business (of all types), the whole concept of designing something to be useful/usable is ignored, overlooked, and generally considered a waste of time. When presented with the idea of 1 hours to throw a crappy form together, or 1 day to lay it out properly (size text fields accordingly, put things in a logical order, set up server sessions to save data between pages, add decent validation, etc), most people at the management level will choose quick and cheap any day of the week. They don't care one bit how things look or work, as long as it doesn't affect them.
Start updating TOS to state that anyone who is in public office is banned from visiting or viewing a site. Then start sending the bastards to jail for violating... ok well, none of them would actually go to jail, but it may cause enough stir to get this whole stupid idea tossed out.
I don't think it will take off anytime in the near future. The way that we interact with computers is so ingrained in us that the 3D paradigm is just to foreign for the average user. Sure, movies make it look cool and easy, but out side of gaming and CAD, there just isn't an accepting market. Meanwhile, if you do want to get into 3D development (dons flameproof suit and hunkers down for the inevitable explosion), Flash is still a viable option. Using the Air platform you can target Windows and Mac desktop, Android and IOS (as apps), and with little to no code change, also target any browser that still has the Flash Player installed. At the moment, that's the best option for developing 3D and hitting the highest number of platforms. However, expect much hate and discontent from nerds and fanbois when you mention developing anything in Flash.
my amd hackintosh begs to differ
about different levels of hardware... I can certainly see where they're coming from, but it's certainly not the route I would take. But hey, what do I know?
why? because we can. not because its a good idea, or because there's some potential great end to it, but simply because we can. there is a certain thrill in the accomplishment that transcends any need for a good reason why. and sometimes, just sometimes, "because we can" is the best damn reason ever. other times its utterly f*cking stupid, YMMV.
i can say from experience that neither one is even remotely qualified to manage nuclear weapons. hell, lets be honest, most people people at the management level, civilian and military alike, shouldnt even be managing their own breakfast choices, let alone nuclear weapons, or worse- other people (yes, i consider people much more dangerous than nuclear weapons, but thats just my opinion).
i swear i read an article in discover magazine (i know, a magazine, it was that long ago) about some researcher that had hooked up electrodes to a patient and taught them how to control a mouse cursor, and later and electric wheelchair with their mind. it became and autonomic function, just like moving your arm (i hate the term "thought controlled", you dont really "think" about moving, its subconscious function) and it was done using a basic EEG(?). am i imagining this, or does anyone else remember this as well? its quite possible that this is a completely incorrect memory thought, i was a kid at the time and i read a lot of sci-fi, so its very possible my memories of real-sci have mixed with my memories of sci-fi
Not a physicist here, so maybe someone who is (or knows more than me could answer) - could we find a way to absorb the energy from these particles, and maybe pump that energy into the warp drive? one of those "the faster you go, the more energy you collect" kind of things?
or if youre in a "work at will" state where theyll fire you for being on jury duty, but officially say it was for some other bullshit reason, and they youre ass-out-of-luck. hurray for "work at will"!
doubtful, considering that most businesses wont move to 8 for at least a couple years, and theres a very good chance theyll skip if altogether and thats the only place where i would NEED to use windows 8. in the consumer world, within a few minutes of sitting down at a win8 computer, ill be able to figure out where everything i really need is at (and most likely how to switch to the non-metro mode, but considering that i avoid using other peoples computers where i can it probably wont ever be an issue. and really, who's gonna point and laugh at me cause i dont know how to use win8? 12 year old MS fanbois?
and instagram will make a filter that adds a purple flar to your images so the hipsters who are too poor for an iphone 5 can get in on the action.
theres nothing frivolous about bigger breasts! even if they are fake
One of the big problems in design these days (in all manners of design, including UI's in cars) is that the average consumer has no idea that things like this are a bad idea. They don't think about how tactile feedback, or how much they'll have to take their eyes off the road, or auditory input with visual output, or any manner of things that people like us (/.'s) think of. They think that touch is high tech, and therefore better (regardless of the implementation), they put form over function, they want the newest and flashiest, even if it isn't the best. Good design takes a back seat to "cool" design more often than not, because the mass public only wants what's new, shiny and cool. Every now and then, good design and cool design intersect and everybody wins, but it's rare.
WYSIWYG editors are great for beginners. but, as most everyone has pointed out, they invariably generate messy code. once you've gotten past the beginner stage, you need to get your hands in the code and learn to do things properly. i realize that designers are often quick to say that you should use an editor, but lets look at it this way- would you take carpentry advice from a plumber? probably not. so why would you take advice on coding a website from a designer? and as for using the tools to generate the code, then going back and cleaning up, personally i find that to be more work than just doing it right the first time. hand coding isnt hard, and the more you do it, the faster you get at it.
Maybe it'll help a few of the more ignorant Christians realize that the King James version is not the one allegedly handed down by god.
dont hold your breath. more likely, therell be a whole pile of "KJV only" groups that will denounce this, kick people who own one out of the church, and rant from the pulpit about this being another attempt by the devil to infiltrate our churches
well, theres the whole "walled garden" thing, and there's apple's tendency to simply stop supporting legacy hardware (which i agree with wholeheartedly, but can be considered an abusive practice), and theres the "apple tax" on desktops and laptops (sure, we can debate the merits of apple's "quality", or their warranties, but at the end of the day, i can buy an equally spec'd machine with windows on it for roughly half of what i would pay for a mac, and do as much, if not more on it than i could on a mac. and if i build it myself, i can probably do it even cheaper.). my comment wasnt a comparison of ms vs apple, but simply a statement of how we, as americans, have a tendency to move from one abusive product provider to another, and we laud how great the new abuser is until we get tired of the way they beat us, and we move again to a different form of abuse.
and eventually even fat stupid Americans catch on and figure out that you're abusing them
So what will these "fat stupid Americans" switch to? Linux? Or will Apple start selling machines at a reasonable price and achieve larger market share?
most likely we'll say "we're tired of being flogged by microsoft, lets go to apple and get caned instead!". we americans have a high capacity for allowing corporations to abuse us (maybe not those of us who read /. but the average american just moves from abuser to abuser)
im not overly popular with typical HR people, cause i ask lots of questions during the initial interview, such as: how do you handle performance reviews? how is management reviewed (top down, 360, etc)? it weeds out bad places to work real quick. plus, its really fun to see the look on an interviewers face when theyre put on the spot.
but rarely ever to browse through the "folder structure" in there. i type the name of what i want and hit enter. 9 times out of 10 its faster than clicking through the folders. for programs i use regularly i have object dock (an identical dock on each screen) as a quicklaunch. i never liked the way things looked pinned to the taskbar and the windows quicklaunch bar just seemed ugly to me. any suggestions on something that i can replace the start menu search with so that when im forced (kicking and screaming, clutching 7 for dear life) into using 8 ill be able to keep my workflow the same? or maybe ill just use a shell replacement..... any suggestions there?
my bad
what's another 70k?
theres good money to be made in injuring, killing, tracking, analyzing, and advertising to humans. not very many companies on this planet would deliberately shut themselves off from that revenue stream. there would be a few that would market the "3 laws safe!" phone, but its only a matter of time before they would succumb to the delicious lure of higher revenue and market share. if anything, they would lie to us about how our phones are "law-abiding" and just do it behind our backs.
they arent my complaints- i develop using AIR on a regular basis. i asked the question "what exactly is wrong with AIR" and those were the stock answers i expected to get from other people here on slashdot. let me address a few points though
just cause something is made by adobe doesnt mean its automatically bad. flash has security holes. that doesnt mean everything else is a terrible product.
saying that AIR isn't available on important platforms is quite incorrect. AIR compiles to Windows, OSX, Linux, IOS, and Android. Currently, it doesn't compile to Blackberry (no big loss) and Windows Phones (i consider that not a big loss). Did i miss anything?
power consumption - yep, it consumes more power than native apps. youre absolutely right. thats the nature of scripted languages with runtime environments. same problem with java, same problem with javascript (and lets not get started on all the different js engines in the browsers), same problem with php, same problem with asp, same problem with....well, every interpreted language- they all consume more resources than native.
however, as long as a developer writes good code, handles memory and event listeners properly, doesn't take shortcuts, etc, the power use difference can be negligible.
as for my last "answer", your rewrite is the correct way of looking at things. however on slashdot, there is a very vocal group that doesn't see it that way. they see only what they know, and insist that if it isn't what they know, it's no good. personally, ive written in C++, C#, Objectionable C, and Java, but I find that i can get most things done considerably quicker in AS3 and AIR. obviously its not always the right tool for the job, and i have no problems jumping to a different language if the project dictates, but when AIR is an option, it's usually the one I go to